[djm]

Would you mind please clarifying what you meant?

I see how spammers would create fake 'review my startup' posts to try and game the amount of front page time they got but if flagging is still applied to these posts then they would disappear quickly as people recognise that the submissions do not fit the 'review my startup' criteria and flag them.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious.

[benologist]

I mean if I come along, submit my site, and automatically go to the front page where I then have to be removed if I'm bad, then it will attract every spamming jackass out there with HN open in one window and AdSense in the other.

[djm]

Oh, I see. I had guessed that stuff like that would be flagged to oblivion fast enough that it wouldn't be an issue. I guess that the speed at which flagging would have an affect relates to the number of people with flag permissions who are currently browsing the main page so the spam problem may vary with time of day etc.

Perhaps an alternative might be reducing the amount of upvotes that a 'review my startup' post requires to get on the main page in the first place. Or perhaps some combination of the two.